


As Long as I'm Alive

by hereforthewomen



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 'moderation' by florence and the machine is the song, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, I hope it is enjoyable anyway, Mourning, and it is sad, and maybe 5 percent dialogue, but I needed to write it, it may not be very entertaining, listen if you like, of the fic, this is 95 percent introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29248524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforthewomen/pseuds/hereforthewomen
Summary: Matthew once promised Mary that she'd have a home at Downton "as long as I'm alive". After his untimely death, this brings her more hurt than comfort and she revisits the site of many moments she and Matthew shared.During her nocturnal wanderings, Tom finds her, and witnesses the depth of her agony. Nothing is settled, but Mary begins to think she may escape her grief.Set a few days before the start of series three.
Relationships: Mary Crawley/Matthew Crawley, Tom Branson & Mary Crawley
Kudos: 3





	As Long as I'm Alive

**Author's Note:**

> I finally reached Matthew's death in my latest rewatch and, as always, I wept buckets. I find a grieving Mary very interesting, so that's where this came from.
> 
> I'm not sure this is very much fun to read, it's almost all introspection, but it was enormously satisfying to write.

In the darkness of the night, lying suddenly awake in her bed, Mary shivers. In a dream, she’d reached out for him, for Matthew, and in waking she finds him not here. They’d tried to move her after the accident, thinking that she’d be happier, less aware of how alone she is, sleeping in a bed she hadn’t shared with Matthew.

What they hadn’t realised, what Mary hadn’t realised until the night she tried it, is that it didn’t help. Not at all. Sleeping without Matthew is bad enough, but being far away, on the other side of the house from where they’d been so happy had somehow been worse.

She’d barely slept for a week, and her exhaustion must have shown in her face, for when she moved back into her old room, no one had mentioned it, not even Papa. This however, leaves Mary once more alone in a room that is full of ghosts of her time with Matthew.

Every time she sits on a chair, stands by the window, opens a book he’d once read, she’s reminded of him. This may be better than trying to distance herself from her memories, but it’s still painful. She loves Downton, she always will, but it’s become a mausoleum of her time with Matthew, memories of moments spent with him lurking around every corner.

On this night, the latest interminable night she’s spent alone since his death, Mary finds herself unable to stay in bed. Something, some memory, draws her from her room, along the gallery, and down the sweeping staircase to the hall. She stands for a moment, in the shadows, before moving to lean against one of the arches, wraps her dressing gown around herself to ward off the slight chill, and gazes out at the room, thinking of all the moments of Crawley history the room has seen, weddings receptions, balls, christenings, and of course so many moments between Matthew and herself.

It was in this room that she was first introduced to him, and in this room that she first felt hope that he might still love her, even after the death of Lavinia and despite her impending marriage to Sir Richard. He’d stormed out of the dining room after her and told her that she didn’t have to marry the other man, didn’t have to marry anyone, that she’d always have a home at Downton as long as he was alive. And, she realises, this is the problem.

After so many years of longing to stay at Downton, wishing desperately for the ability to claim her birthright, she’d done it. And not just that, but she’d found love, a love so great that at times the intensity of it had been almost overwhelming. He’d changed her, teased out a softness she’d previously kept hidden, and she’d been glad of it. She’d welcomed the feeling of contentment, allowed herself to lean into him, trusting that he’d be there to anchor her, to keep her safe.

Now that he’s been snatched away from her, gone fifty years before his time, she’s reminded of what her reply had been to his fiery speech, telling him that surely the war should have taught them both never to make promises about living a long life. Of course, at the time, this had been a defense mechanism, a way to deflect, keep him at arms length and prevent him from seeing how much she truly still loved him, despite his vows to the memory of Lavinia. Now he’s been taken from her, it feels cruelly ironic, as if she’d summoned up her own unhappy ending with a few flippant words.

To begin with, whenever she’d looked at George, she’d felt only relief in place of whatever motherly emotion he’s supposed to invoke in her. Relief that he’s a boy, that he’ll inherit, that she will never be forced from this house by a faceless unknown heir. Recently, this emotion has been tempered by regret, by the thought that now she’s tied forever to this place, bound to look after it and raise George to love it as she has, to help execute Matthew’s vision in his place.

This regret is what has prevented her from speaking up when she hears her father tell them to leave her alone, let her be, when she sees him trying to shield her from the world. Even through the fog that she’s engulfed in, she recognises that this annoys her, that once she would not have allowed this to happen, would have spoken indignantly, asserting her rights as George’s mother and Matthew’s wife. Once.

She knows that Tom has been trying to tempt her back into taking an interest in the estate, that he has been trying to convince Papa that protecting her from everything is doing her more harm than good. At first he’d been rather subtle, and she’d paid him no mind, refusing offers of walks around the woods, or picnics by a struggling farm with the children.

Since the recent change by the others into half mourning, as they have shed the black in favour of muted lavender and greys, he’s become more insistent. It seems as if everywhere she turns there’s some prop to remind her of her duty to the estate, to George, something reminding her that Matthew had sunk a great deal of time and effort into the place, and that she should want to continue fighting for his wishes.

Deep down, she knows he’s right, she can feel that it is what Matthew would have wanted, and that Tom is only trying to save her from grief, to pull her back to them. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to fully reach her, to break through the barrier she feels like she carries with her always. She can tell he’s getting more and more frustrated, though he hides it well, but she does not yet have the energy, the resolve, to give him what he wants. Sometimes, she’s not sure she ever will, it seems like she’s destined to be a sad figure dressed in black, drifting around her ancestral home like some kind of absurd wraith for the rest of her life.

Despite herself, at this image Mary almost smiles, she might be deep in grief but she knows it will never come to that. She abhors nothing so much as she abhors a cliche. No. She knows she’ll eventually come out of this, that something will force her, finally provoke her into standing against her father. This, she recognises, is very much the approach Tom has been taking of late, seeking to use her own stubbornness against her, to anger her enough, make her feel enough, that she has no choice but to wake up. Downton might cause her pain now, but she can see in the future that it will be the thing that sustains her, keeps her fighting.

*******

Tom has been up late, pouring over some estate accounts in his room by lamplight, searching for some conclusive piece of evidence that will convince Robert that they must move forward with Matthew’s vision, must not go back to the way things were before. As always, when he thinks of Matthew and what he left behind, his thoughts drift to Mary. She’s drowning, so engulfed by her own grief that sometimes he’s surprised she can even stand, that her feet still know how to move one in front of the other.

Sometimes he thinks Robert thinks he’s heartless on the matter, that he doesn’t understand why Mary is so distraught. Sometimes he thinks Robert forgets that Tom has been there himself, that he’d been left wallowing in his grief following Sybil’s death. He knows Robert has come to accept him, but he’s not quite sure he recognises how deeply and completely he’d loved her, and how hollow he’d felt after she died.

The difference between him and Mary, there are many of course but this is the most important, is that when Sybil died, Tom had been left behind with a tiny daughter in a strange land. The family had all been very kind to him, but at the time he’d felt very keenly that they were Sybil’s family, that he couldn’t rely on them completely.

On the other hand, Mary is ensconced in her family home among the people who had raised her, who have always tried to protect her, and who have closed ranks around her now. Far from being left to rely on her wits, to Tom it seems as if they’re almost smothering her, allowing her to drown in her own misery in the name of protection.

He knows her to be incredibly strong, often to a fault, but it’s like she’s fading away before his eyes, becoming brittle, fragile, and so painfully thin that it’s as if a strong wind genuinely could take her away. He knows that recently she’s become frustrated with him, that some of his attempts to interest her in the estate have registered, and have begun to anger her. Terrifying and cold as she can be when angry, Tom thinks to himself that he’d welcome it, absorb every blow if only she’d show some modicum of emotion.

It is at this point that he hears something move past his door, and then listening out for it, the subtle creak of the landing at the top of the staircase tells him someone is heading down towards the hall. Hesitating for a moment, thinking it’s likely just Carson or Mrs Hughes making a last late night check, curiosity gets the better of him and he exits his room, walking slowly and quietly towards the staircase, for once finding himself glad of the plush carpet beneath his feet as it muffles his footsteps.

He’s not quite sure what he’d expected to find, but it is not what he sees before him. Mary stands in the shadows at the foot of the staircase, seemingly in a trance, looking uncannily like the ghost she’s imitated so well these past few months. She then moves to lean against one of the arches, gazing out into the room with eyes that clearly see things he cannot.

For a moment the most shocking thing about her appearance to Tom is the fact that her nightclothes, at least, are not black. So far she’s resisted moving into half mourning along with her sisters, and to Tom’s eyes a Mary not wearing black has become a strange sight. Then, he takes in the look on her face, and that is almost more shocking.

For the past months he’s seen no sign of emotion on her face, which has been consistently a blank mask, her pain hidden deep within. Now, the mask is gone, and the agony that he glimpses behind it is so obvious and horrifying that he can almost feel it himself. She’s still beautiful, he doubts anything could change that, but every angle, contour and hollow on her face stands out in sharp relief, the agony and sorrow shown there turning her face into something almost non human and primal.

At this moment, the floorboards creak beneath his feet and her eyes snap up to meet his, the emotion quickly gone, the mask back in place. He descends the staircase slowly, conscious of Mary’s eyes on him, and feeling somehow as if one too sudden movement would send her into flight. He reaches the bottom of the stairs and she is still there, still staring at him impassively and without emotion.

For a minute, he misses Matthew so much it hurts, knowing that only he would be absolutely sure what to do with his impossible wife at this moment. But then, he thinks wryly, if Matthew were alive to deal with her himself, she wouldn’t need his help in the first place.

“Mary, you should go back to bed” he says, trying to keep his tone light, not let his worry at finding her here at this time show through.

She is still for a moment, as if considering him. Then, slowly, she nods.

“You’re right” she says, in a tone so empty it hurts. Then, in a tone that betrays a touch more emotion, “Tom, I can’t do what you want me to. I can’t... “ here she pauses, and her tone drops to a whisper “I can’t.”

This is what Tom had feared she thought, and he’s quick to counter this “Mary, we just want you to come back to us.”

She looks down at her feet “I can’t, and I wish you’d stop trying to make me” and turns to leave, ascending the staircase quickly, not wishing to speak any more.

Tom watches her go, thinking to himself “You can. Just, not yet”.

The brief flash of fire he has just glimpsed in her eyes has given him all the hope he needs to know that she can come back to them, that she will. After all, the one thing everyone in this house, up and down stairs, knows about Lady Mary Crawley, is that she doesn’t give up without a fight.

***

Back in her room, away from Tom’s expectant gaze, Mary allows herself to collapse onto her bed, her movements more sudden than she’d allowed them to be in months. She knows that Tom had glimpsed the utter agony her late night memory session had caused to flicker on her face. She also knows that one day soon she’ll give in, break through the fog and go back to Tom and the rest of her family. One day soon, but not yet.


End file.
